At present, it is most difficult to maintain a smooth flow of traffic due to the ever-increasing traffic loads especially on those heavily traveled toll roads. With those conventional systems even one with a large number of personnel for issuing tickets or collecting tolls from motorists, this takes quite sometime for each car before being able to pass the toll plaza. Thus, during rush hour the traffic is almost always paralysed which causes consequent irritation and tiredness; and very important, an incredible waste of fuel and time. In addition, such traffic jams causes great pollution as huge amount of carbon monoxide is produced. These all cause substantial inconvenience to travelers including a great waste of fuel in the country.
Many systems have been proposed to use radio frequency identification (RFID) techniques for toll collection where drivers acquire a "tag" or card that acts as a reflective transmitter or discrete transmitter to identify the vehicle by serial number as it passes through a toll booth. This technique is referred to as Automatic Vehicle Identification (AVI).
Using the AVI system, a great burden is imposed on the toll agencies to handle hundreds of thousands of individual accounts in addition to a need to invest a huge amount of capital to establish a mainframe computerized network system due to the fact that the RFID tag lacks a machine-intelligent processor for manipulation and storage of accounts such that individual toll accounts for all users must be maintained. And since the RFID tags lack a processor or user interface, vehicle operators cannot readily ascertain account balances, and have no warnings as to limited or exhausted credit. Both confusion and safety hazards can be created as drivers cross over to conventional toll collection lanes with little warning.
User-privacy is also disturbed by using the RFID system since generation and storage of detailed vehicle-specific travel records and identification is required.
Another system, U.S. Pat. No. 5,086,389, has been proposed to overcome those above mentioned deficiencies using an in-vehicle toll processor or in-vehicle component (IVC), which is purchased or leased by vehicle operators. The IVC controls and processes toll-related debit/credit transactions, including extraction of toll charges, by communicating with two transmitter modules operated by the toll authority located at the toll plaza. Such system though being improved to a certain level, yet still suffers from such inconvenience that the vehicle operator has to carry the IVC to the toll authority agent at a toll credit facility to load the IVC with a value representative of an initial toll-money-available quantity he purchased. It is very desirable to use a portable card system where vehicle operator can purchase something like two cards in advance and therefore can abolish this inconvenience since the driver can use the other purchased card right when the previous one does not have sufficient amount of toll left with no need to stop for IVC loading like that in the system using IVC. The next purchase of the magnetic cards can be done any time at his convenience. This also preserves the privacy of users in addition to providing him, a receipt which can facilitate charging of the toll as a business expense.
The present invention is an automatic toll collection system which requires no stoppage of vehicle as it passes a given toll charged point at normal driving speeds up to 180 mph (300 kph) and in addition, does not require the presence of employees of the toll-levying authority. Those systems requiring computerized net work system would need very large amount of capital to install and would come up with all the formidable tasks such as billing and information updating as what proposed in the prior arts (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,555,618, 4,675,824, and 5,086,389; EP-A-2 0425961). Yet, another toll-collection system of Claus et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,310,999) using the data signals for transmission through the air as the radio frequency (RF) range from 902 to 928 MHz where a vehicle-mounted unit communicates with two antennas to make toll payments and transfer data to/from a smart card which is inserted therein. This system although has been improved to a near perfect extent, yet still suffers from the fact that the cost of a smart card is quite expensive and much greater than the presently available magnetic cards or optically coded cards. The use of new technologically available cards of debit type would offer both privacy of the users and a secure antifraud mechanism including a less expensive way of making toll payments. In addition, their system also suffers from the fact that by using the RF as means for paying toll, there would always be quite great chances that communications for making toll payment in such system can be easily interfered either intentionally or unintentionally. The situation is worse when the toll facilities located near the airport with greater interference which is quite likely for such chance to happen. By selling of a portable card with a pre-set value makes it possible to reduce the total amount of cash handled and in this way promotes better securities for the authority operating at the charged point in addition to abolishing the burden of periodic billings to the customers by the grantors as in the case where credit card systems are used.
The prepaid card system or the like such as the optically coded cards like that of LGZ Landis & Gyr Zug AG, Zug, Switzerland (U.S. Pat. No. 5,101,184; date of Patent, Mar. 31, 1992) allows the grantor to collect cash in advance before the action of passing the charged point takes place which should be most desirable for any investment than to collect after the action took place which sometime may encounter those bad accounts with no or not sufficient amount of money to be deducted.
The objectives of the present invention are:
(1) to provide a system which is very simple, convenient and can be very easily handled and maintain the users' privacy, yet is highly effective and at very low cost of investment for collection of toll for utilization of any expressways or any places where using of cars is involved; PA1 (2) to provide a system which will speed up the flow of traffic through toll plazas, where traffic becomes paralysed or near paralysed during rush periods; PA1 (3) to provide advantages to vehicles drivers or owners as the elimination of time required to stop a vehicle to pay a toll, and that the passage of a vehicle through a toll station can be possible at a normal driving speed; PA1 (4) to provide advantages to a vehicle owner or driver by minimizing congestion at toll plazas, and to increase economical fuel usage by eliminating stop-and-go driving; PA1 (5) to promote driver convenience by eliminating the need to locate coins or bills to pay tolls as he approaches toll plazas; or to carry any socalled "in-vehicle component" to the toll authority to be loaded with a toll credit; PA1 (6) to reduce the number of authority needed for operating at the toll station, i.e., the toll booth operators; PA1 (7) to reduce the total amount of cash flow through the toll system, that cash that must be count and picked up at toll plazas and transported in armored vehicles can be greatly reduced, therefore promotes better securities for the authority; PA1 (8) to eliminate the need of billing system in such case that credit card issued by a particular grantor is used by the motorists in a computerized-network credit-type of toll collection method, which is quite a great burden; PA1 (9) to allow a particular portable card grantor to collect cash for payment of tolls in advance right even before the passing of the expressway takes place; PA1 (10) to allow a fair collection of tolls such that on an expressway having a plurality of exits, the driver will pay according to the distance, the longer the more expensive, PA1 (11) to reduce the possibility of serious car accidents which is most likely can happen when those with speed as high as 55 m.p.h. have to come to a full stop to pay toll, especially in those poor weather conditions. PA1 1. The primary set is installed at each toll booth, both at the entrance and the exit. Such primary set is powered by an alternating current. PA1 2. The secondary set, powered by a direct current, is installed onboard in the moving vehicle while it passes the entrance or the exit at a normal driving speed. The power supply can be provided from battery of the vehicle.